Two people have died after a light plane nosedived into a river in front of thousands of horrified spectators at an air show in Western Australia, missing nearby boats and crowds.
Footage shared on social media showed the 1948 Grumman G-73 Mallard seaplane flying above the Swan River in Perth on Thursday afternoon as part of Australia Day celebrations before it went down.
Western Australia Police said the “very experienced” pilot Peter Lynch, 52, and his Indonesian-born passenger and partner, 30-year-old Endah Cakrawati, died in the crash.
“Thank God it went down in the water ... that was one of my first thoughts,” WA Police Acting Commissioner Stephen Brown told reporters in Perth on Friday.
“There’s ... very clear waterway, that was the clear waterway that Peter was flying over and not too far away on the foreshore are thousands of people.
“And further to the west was quite a large group of members of the public on their boats.”
Perth Mayor Lisa Scaffidi said Lynch had “remodelled” the twin-engine plane and had flown it across the United States then across the Pacific Ocean to Australia.